Health physics: its development, successes, failures, and eccentricities.

Health Physics began at the University of Chicago as a science and profession during the early World War II years. It was initiated by Drs. A.H. Compton and R.S. Stone, director and associate director, respectively, of the early Plutonium Project cryptically called the Metallurgical Laboratory. It was to be a science and a profession to protect radiation workers and members of the public from exposure to ionizing radiation. It succeeded to some extent in this objective but during the past decade in the United States, it has reverted into an organization primarily to protect the nuclear industry from liability resulting from radiation exposure.